50mm or 85mm

Unfortunately my budget does not at this time allow for the 85mm
what do you guys think of the 50mm as a portrait lens
Also will be using for indoor candid shots of my granddaughter just messing about
I have a couple of Yongnuos and umbrellas so would like to try more formal portrait shots
Will the 50 do the business
cheers guys

On DX camera a 50mm is great for portraits.

Or as a possible candidate I propose the Nikkor 85mm f/2 AI S.It was designed to soften the subject so that wrinkles, zits and other skin stuff would be softened. It was designed for portraits. I have one and enjoy it. Or maybe even a 105mm f/2.5 Ai? But the nifty 50 D F/1.8 can do the job and at a great price and is great in low light situations.

50mm on a DX is about 75mm equivalent and that's very close to the 85mm that was my goto lens for portraits for years. If you take the picture sharp you can soften it as you like.......................???????

85mm indoors is going to be too long for "candids" unless you've got a lot of room. I suspect you have a zoom, right? Likely an 18-100+. Stick it on 50, look around. Stick it on 85, look around. You'll make your own decision.

The 50mm will "fatten" faces a bit for headshots, but LR's auto correction helps a bit. Damn good, though, and I use it for candid shots quite often. Damn good lens for the price.

Indoors, on a DX, the 35mm is a champ too. The 85mm 1.8G is supposed to be one of the sharpest lenses out there, though... all depends on the room you've got, as that's probably a bit long for most indoor shooting on the go situations. As Jake mentioned above, I ran around the house with my 18-55 set to ~50mm and tested it for field of view for a while. Then I switched to my 70-200 and did the same thing at ~85mm. I chose the 50 as my first lens, just because of distance needs inside...

All good advice already here, so I'll just rehash my thoughts...

The 50mm lens on a DX body like the D7100 has an effective focal length of approx 75mm, making it close to the 85mm on an FX body. The 50mm lens is still wider though, so could have more lens distortion to clean up in post, but like Pretzel said it's easy enough to do in Lightroom. I shot the 85mm/1.8 for the first time two weeks ago indoors for some indoor portraits and was really amazed at how far away I had to get for full-body shots. Going back and looking at the images I've taken with the 24-120mm/4 on the D7100, I'm usually closer up than that...somewhere between 50 and 85mm.

50mm for your DX body will be great.